GHQ RHETORIC AND REFORM: CHANGING GENDER DISCOURSE IN ALLIED OCCUPIED JAPAN

This paper(masters thesis at Shizuoka University) examines the gender reform policies enacted by the General Headquarters (GHQ) during the Allied Occupation of Japan (1945–1952), focusing on the discursive strategies used to frame, legitimize, and promote these reforms. It investigates what drove GHQ’s push for gender equality, exploring how rhetoric, ideology, and geopolitical and psychological factors intersected in the postwar context.Using Critical Discourse Analysis, Terror Management Theory, and Gender Studies, the study analyzes English-language and translated Japanese sources, including SCAPIN directives, The Japan Times, Stars and Stripes, Yank Magazine, NHK newsreels, and Asahi Shimbun. Through rhetorical mapping and thematic coding, it reveals how gender reforms were framed as vital to Japan’s democratization and moral recovery post-defeat.Findings indicate that GHQ’s gender reforms were not solely driven by liberal democratic ideals but were also strategic responses to American and Japanese anxieties. These reforms reshaped public identities and cultural narratives, embedding gender equality within discourses of peace, modernization, and civic duty. However, they were influenced by American views of Japanese society and Cold War priorities, which moderated the initial emancipatory rhetoric.By analyzing the discursive construction of femininity, masculinity, heroism, and citizenship, this thesis argues that GHQ’s gender agenda was a complex ideological project, balancing progressive goals with conservative limits. It highlights how language served as a tool for cultural reconstruction, shaping the postwar Japanese subject through emotionally resonant narratives of rebirth and reform.